Recommendations for FULL BACKUP needed

[wtquick]

It's not quite 6 months since I bought my Palm m130 and my digitizer is beginning to go bad. I contacted Palm because I'm well within my warranty period, and they asked me to try a HARD RESET before giving up on my m130 digitizer problem. (If the hard reset fails to correct the problem, they'll be sending me a replacement m130.)

As a longtime Palm user, I have many different apps on my Palm, I use 3rd party conduits for the calendar, contact and todo functions, and I can ill afford to lose what I've got. I am very uncomfortable doing the hard reset until I have an easily restorable COMPLETE backup of all apps and settings (i.e., not just a backup of the data).

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good way to do a full backup? Is there a preferred program out there for doing this?

Thanks in advance!

-Bill

[hcamstra]

Been there, dun that..

I suggest you do a (final) hotsync and then make a copy of your entire Palm-folder (C:\palm or perhaps C:\Program Files\Sony Handheld) to keep in a safe place (CDR or external memorycard).
Also make a note of the hotsync name.
After a hard reset (or with a new machine), first do the basic settings (language, date/time etc.) and then hotsync. In principle you should have everything back as it was. Should disaster occur, like wiping your entire Desktop data (not likely, but not impossible), delete the c:\palm folder and replace it with a copy of the backup. Then set Hotsync\custom to Desktop overwrites Handheld on all the applications, and try again (hang on to your backup until you're really back to normal; i.e. for ever)

[slong]

Use Backup Buddy by bluenomad.
The program makes a backup of all the files on your palm.
I have used it for both hard resets and switching palms and in all cases backup buddy has placed all my files back onto my palm. Making it like I never had a problem.

Greate program!

steve

[wtquick]

Thanks for the suggestion about Backup Buddy. It's a nifty program that gave me the results I wanted. (No fiddling with having to redo my settings. Everything came back as though I had never changed PDAs, which is a superior result to using Palm's hotsync to restore things.)

-Bill